


love like this

by petragem



Category: Rookie Blue
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petragem/pseuds/petragem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The housewarming party, early season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love like this

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nereemac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nereemac/gifts).



> Written for/originally posted at the [omg!holiday gift exchange](http://omg-rookieblue.livejournal.com/40455.html).

It's Andy's idea, the housewarming, an offhand thought one morning (late late night) driving home from the barn, sun just rising in the rearview. He resists, but she brings it up again, and again. She’s antsy, he knows, has been on desk duty two weeks straight. Taking a bullet to the vest will do that to a person. The bruise spread across her ribs is only just fading. 

It’ll be nice, he finally tells himself. The housewarming, it’ll be nice.

***

And it is, actually.

They start prepping for it three nights before, Andy cross-legged in bed, pulling a notebook onto her lap. She makes careful lists: guests, food, drinks, games, snacks.

“Aren’t food and snacks the same thing?” he asks.

“Uh, no. They’re totally different, obviously,” she answers, the _duh_ not stated but heavily implied.

“Obviously,” he agrees, and turns onto his side, watches her.

They send the facebook invites out to their carefully curated guest list the next morning (Andy’s dad and all of Fifteen. _Jo too?_ she asked, neutral, and he paused but said _sure. Jo too._ ), make plans to swing by the grocery store that evening after their shift ends. He pushes the cart as she pulls things off the shelves, listens as she theorizes on food vs. snack logic. 

(“Snacks are things you don’t need plates for.” Obviously.)

Andy makes a pot of sauce when they get home, so they can have it ready to heat it up in the crockpot, throw in a bag of store-bought meatballs. 

(“Food,” she says, authoritative. “Meatballs are too messy to eat straight out of the pot.”)

Luke nods, serious, goes back to slicing veggies, slicing cheese. (“Snacks, both,” though she hesitates, admits that it sort of depends on the type of cheese, generally.)

Next day they spend a solid forty minutes meandering through a liquor store, looking at wine, looking at whiskey, gin. She considers every bottle gravely before finally muttering "Fuck, let's just get a keg.”

They bake something called slutty brownies when they get home. To Luke, it feels like a lot of work, but Andy promises they’re worth it. (“Dessert” she says, excited, when he looks at her, eyebrow raised. “Dessert is an entirely different category.”)

It’s fun, living with her; it is fun in a way he didn’t see coming. He thought she’d need to be eased into it, how slow it was for them, at the start. Months and months of never knowing quite for sure if she’d be in his bed when he woke up. But: she sings along to songs that are only in her head, cheerfully expands into this brand new space, makes it theirs. He’s never seen anyone nest so hard; she’s already rearranged the living room twice. Wears an apron when she cooks, a joke-gift from Traci, given right before they moved. Lavender smock with lacy black trim. She doesn't cook often, to be honest, parties aside, but given how whenever she does, she tends to do it in various stages of undress, it's uh. Probably wise. 

She catches him looking, grins, delighted, says something crass about living to serve him. He drops to his knees, nudges her legs open. Pulls down her sweatpants.

“Ow,” she says, gasping, clutching at her side. Then: “Don’t _stop_ , Luke,” so. He doesn’t.

He still hasn't told her he loves her. He knows he does, of course he does; he felt it before he asked her to move in with him. Past few weeks, it’s almost popped out of him a dozen times. Andy aching and healing, Andy freshly shot at. He doesn’t want to think about what would’ve happened if it hit her somewhere other than the vest.

***

She dresses up for the housewarming, slinky black tank top and dangly silver earrings, so he does too.

Traci and Leo arrive first, carrying a tray stacked tall with cookies ( _dessert_ , Luke thinks) and a tiny little-kid backpack. The card he colored for them’s still hanging on their fridge.

Dov, Chris, Gail. Noelle and Oliver, with Frank soon behind them. A couple of guys from his old division. 

Andy greets person after person, nervous-excited energy and jittery hands. Gives each group a quick tour through the place, swinging through the spare room to drop jackets and purses on the bed.

“We have a coat closet, you know,” Luke says, after the bell rings for the fifth time, Andy dashing here and there, like some kind of over-eager puppy.

“Don’t open it,” she hisses, panicked. “I shoved all the unpacked boxes in there.”

Jo's a no show, which is unsurprising, and so is Sam, which is less so. "He got tied up on a case," Ollie says, apologetic. Andy doesn't seem fazed. Luke wonders not for the first time what ever happened between them. Wonders if it’s true what they’re saying about him turning down Guns and Gangs.

Andy laughs bright and noisy, at something Gail says, at a photo Oliver pulls up on his phone, at Dov loaded down with cups, trudging out back to the keg. She leads Leo over to a stack of board games, plays uno then bananagrams then rummikub, with him and Nash and Diaz. The boy rooks both wore ties.

They all seem bent on being grownups. _Take your time,_ he wants to tell him. Even though he's not much older than them at all. At their age—at their age he thought he’d be married, by now. Maybe even have a kid. Funny how things turn out, but with Andy, he could see—he could see that, with her. Someday. Cooking in their PJs, weekends at the cabin. Tiny hockey skates and fishing poles.

He makes the rounds, is sure to say hello to everyone, is sure everyone’s drinks and plates and hands are full, is sure the keg is properly iced down. Agrees with the veteran Ds marveling over the plate of slutty brownies that they are, in fact, delicious. 

“Hey,” she says, grabbing his arm, pulling him down the hall to the bathroom, out of sight. Warm homey chatter of the party just out of reach. Kisses him, hard, just once. Wipes the lipstick off his face. She glows.


End file.
